Pretty much every key combination on my laptop is likely to perform some sort of fancy function, thanks to Triggers with Quicksilver. Ironically, this article is about how to add another shortcut to disable them all.

For instance, if you use a notebook computer and a real notebook in class (like me) then table space is at a premium. But taking notes on top of my keys will cause a mess and closing my computer makes it sleep. Maybe your computer is at risk of being pounced on by pets, children or transformers. Or, you might find your OCD taking over and a sudden keyboard-cleaning is in order. My friends — these solutions are for you.

Read on to your heart’s content »

It’s been a pretty crazy week around here at HackCollege. Between the Adult Swim Contest and us making the Lifehacker front page, we’ve been keeping busy.

Because of this, I completely forgot to mention a guest post that I wrote over at Cal Newport’s Study Hacks blog. I’m sure all of the readers of HackCollege are also avid readers of Cal’s blog so they already caught it; and if you aren’t an avid reader, then you should be.

Guest Post: How to Use a Laptop in Class [via Study Hacks]

Watching the latest podcast episode, Kelly, Chris, and Scott were traveling by train –a cheap way to get around Europe. In Germany, they also have carpooling. If you can somewhat speak/understand German, check out MitfahrGelegenheit.de.

Choose your starting point (von), destination (nach), and date. Then click the Angebot links to read ads from people who are driving the route you’ve chosen and are looking for passengers. Within the ad, you’ll generally find both an email address and a telephone number. Contact the driver (who will probably speak English, too), get the price, and schedule a meeting location.

Cheaper than by train, especially if it’s just you and a friend.

I’ve gotten a few questions recently on my life “in the cloud,” one of them being keeping track of bookmarks. This is especially a problem if you’re lucky/foolish enough to have more than one computer (e.g. me). My answer is, and has been for more than a year, a nice service called del.icio.us.

Here’s a disclaimer that should be implied with every post: This is not extra clutter for your life.

del.icio.us is a “social bookmarking site” that allows a user to save his or her bookmarks into del.icio.us easily. The smart folks behind the site have made some slick buttons that you can build into Firefox.

So let’s say I’m browsing a site and want to remember it for later. Rather than bookmark it into my Firefox bookmarks, which just stay on that one computer, I “tag” it to my del.icio.us. All I have to do is press that “tag” button on my toolbar. The social aspect of del.icio.us then indexes my bookmarks with everyone else’s. Checking out what other people have bookmarked makes for a great time-waster/brain-enhancer.

All in all, del.icio.us has a permanent place in our hearts and our workflows.

del.icio.us homepage
Sign up for del.icio.us
Get the del.icio.us Firefox toolbar
See my del.icio.us

I recently found and tested the convenience of CampusFood, so I thought I’d share my positive results.

After selecting my “campus”, CampusFood listed several of the local restaurants available for take-out or delivery in my area. I was craving some Mexican food with a Chinese twist, so I clicked this Chinese-run “Fresh Taco” restaurant I really like to see their full menu online. I was craving a burrito and some chicken and rice soup. Yum.

I selected to pay with a credit card (since I never have cash on me), waited a minute for the confirmation email to arrive (letting me know my order went through), and then… Ding, Dong! In 30 minutes, they were at my door. I had already tipped the delivery boy online with my credit card, so all I had to do was run downstairs, say, “Thank You!”, run back up, and start eating.

I was floored with how effective this was!

The service also allows pre-ordering and even ordering by text message. I will never save another menu or restaurant phone number again!

Do you have a roommate? Do you have two? Maybe 5 or more? And would you like to keep your dorm room clean without having to nag everyone else to help out? Check out ChoreBuster. It does just that. Yay!

ChoreBuster allows you to set up a list of chores and arrange them by order of nastiness or difficulty (aka, which chores aren’t so bad and which chores absolutely suck). It then asks you for the names of the people involved (aka, all your roommates) and their email addresses.

It will then sort everything out into a nice schedule that you can print out and display each week. Like who has to clean the toilet, clean the sink, empty the trash, vacuum, get the beer that week, whatever.

And you can set it up to nag your rommmate(s) daily or weekly over email –in my opinion, the best feature.

Thank you so much, ChoreBuster, for keeping us distal proximity players in mind. Face-to-face communication is just too risky.

School has started again. Do you have all your school supplies? But are they Web 2.0 compliant? Be sure to check out:

• The HackCollege Pack
• Read/Write Web’s Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students
• Mashable’s No Download Required: 30+ Apps That Are Killing Microsoft

We also recommend:

• MapMyRun
• Skype
• StudyStickies
• Social Note-Taking
• Quizlet
• PocketMod
• And our Student 2.0 Category

Speaking of sexual predators, whether they be on MySpace or not…

If you’re going away to college this year, in a new city or state, you might want to check out Vision 20/20’s Offender Locator.

You can input the address of your dorm and find the location, information, and picture of all registered sexual offenders within 1 mile, 2 miles, 5, 10, or 20 miles away from you.

I searched my address, and I found 60 within 1 mile. Scary, but I’m glad I know.